Staggering between English and Spanish, language becomes Scenters-Zapicos mirror, reflecting her body, her family, and the borders that confine them.
My Perfect Cognate interrogates the connections and contrasts at the sharp edges of her in-betweens: violence and softness, motherhood and isolation, the border between the United States and Mexico, where the author and her mother were often stopped, interrogatedWritten from the depths of severe post-partum depression, Natalie Scenters-Zapico searches for a language that can hold both personal and communal pain. When Spanish and English seem insufficient, she leans on the connection between the two languages: the cognate.
Originally a way to document lineage through the mother, the cognate provides a possible bridge of understanding. But for every cognate that works as a mirror reflection, the wave of a border agents hand, a stamped passport, a false cognate that works as an expired visa, a rejected biometric scan, a port of entry shut down by violent legislation.
Natalie Scenters-Zapico mines the depths of linguistic cognate theory to write poems that go beyond translation and mistranslation. We find hope in a translingual landscape that breaks open borders.
| Format |
Häftad |
| Omfång |
112 sidor |
| Språk |
Engelska |
| Förlag |
Copper Canyon Press,U.S. |
| Utgivningsdatum |
2025-11-13 |
| ISBN |
9781556597275 |
